


Tell Me a Story

by thatgirl_youknowtheone



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Elle is a little shit, Gen, a street meat vendor gets a weird customer, and boy does this girl have some stories to tell, and we love her, if you've ever wondered what kind of shit Elle gets up to when she's off exploring the world, well here's an idea
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-01-10 11:42:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12298542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatgirl_youknowtheone/pseuds/thatgirl_youknowtheone
Summary: "You can have another meal for free if you tell me a story."Elle looked up."You serious?" she asked, licking a few stray crumbs off her thumb. "Seems like dumb business management.""What do you know about business management?" Cassidy shot back with a barely offended smile, "Do you want a free meal or not?"





	1. Casino Guy

**Author's Note:**

> I love to imagine the kinds of adventures Elle gets up to when she's off adventuring on her own. This is just one of the crazy things she's gotten up to ~
> 
> Warning: Elle tells a story about a guy who has quite a nasty sexist personality, if you're sensitive to any language involving men demeaning women and using sexist slurs, proceed with caution.
> 
> You'll be happy to know, however, that he most certainly gets what he deserves ~

Being a street meat vendor in a big city had exposed Cassidy to a considerable number of strange human beings. Cassidy didn't believe in throwing away edible stock at the end of the day, she did pride herself on her fresh high quality meat but she wasn't so vain that she wouldn't sell the slightly dry, a little too fatty, questionably shaped cuts that were always left at the back of the fridge towards the end of the day.

The general middle class population wasn't particularly interested in these leftovers, but Cassidy got a rockin' business out of the less well-to-do areas when she sold her still tasty, still edible but slightly dodgy looking meals for less than a buck.

This was where she came across her favourite customers. They were all struggling with money, they wouldn't be her evening customers if they weren't, but they all struggled for different reasons.

There were the ordinary sort, busy single dad with five kids who needed a quick and cheap dinner for everyone because he got laid off last year and could only find minimum wage work. The woman in a suit jacket that looked nice from a distance but was considerably worn at the elbows, she wouldn't tell Cassidy her story, but she always looked tired. There was a fellow who wore the same beanie and hoody every day no matter the season and had the brightest smile she'd ever seen, he'd been kicked out of home by ignorant parents who 'disapproved of his lifestyle', and then... there were the weirdos.

Cassidy loved the weirdos. 

There was a man who was remarkably skilled at gumming his way through a whole chunk of sinewy lamb with only three teeth in the whole of his mouth, he'd survived a brain tumour in his youth and was still paying off the medical bills. A heroine addict who wore nothing but a skirt and carted around half a bicycle wherever he went dropped by the van every day for his dinner, it seemed pretty clear where his money was going. There was also the tattooed old woman with the gorgeous hair wraps and battered old shoes who always bought a big box of 'surprise me', she won the lottery ten years ago, quit her job, abandoned her abusive husband and then lost it all to the races, she seemed happy though.

These were regular weirdos, weirdos she'd come to know by name and have their orders ready the moment she spotted them coming, but there was also the fly-by sort. Here one day, gone the next. Popping in for a day, week or month before falling off the face of her route.

Elle fit into this category of weirdo.

Elle was a tiny thing that could barely reach the truck window, the first Cassidy ever  
saw of her was a set of crusty, chipped finger nails and a hand that had probably never been introduced to the concept of soap. She dropped a pile of pennies on the counter and pointed at the biggest thing on the menu.

"I want that!" said the grimy little hand.

Cassidy had to lean out through the window to hand her a big box of a-little-too-crispy chicken pieces. She didn't wait a second before digging right in, devouring the whole box and licking it clean like it was her first meal in years.

The girl's little red beanie was filled to bursting with a black, wiry bird's nest, and her faded blue hoodie might have fit her perfectly a few years ago. Cassidy gave her the offer she gave everyone in this neighbourhood.

"You can have another meal for free if you tell me a story."

Elle looked up.

"You serious?" she asked, licking a few stray crumbs off her thumb. "Seems like dumb business management."

"What do you know about business management?" Cassidy shot back with a barely offended smile, "Do you want a free meal or not?"

With the kind of upper body strength Cassidy wouldn't have expected from such a malnourished street kid, Elle grabbed the edge of the counter and pulled herself right up until she was sitting at Cassidy's level.

"What kind of story do you wanna hear?" Elle kicked her legs over the counter edge, swinging them haphazardly.

"Tell me something about you." Cassidy suggested as she threw some chicken pieces into a vat of oil. "You look full of stories."

Elle grinned. "You better motherfudgin' believe I am." she shifted around to face Cassidy and crossed her legs on the countertop. Cassidy took a glance at the filthy, tattered sneakers and wrote a mental reminder to clean the counter extra thoroughly tonight.

Elle pursed her lips and thought hard for a moment.

"My name is Elle... and I... umm," she squinted one eye hard and bit her tongue as she mulled her next words over with the look of someone not so much struggling to find a story, but of one with too many to choose from. "One time I broke into a rich jerk's house and made him think it was haunted for a week."

Cassidy burst out laughing.

"Are you for real??? That can't be real. No you know what, I don't care, I wanna hear this anyway." Cassidy settled her chin into her hands expectantly. "Tell me EVERYTHING."

Elle grinned. "So I was performing on a street corner somewhere in Vegas when this guy comes up and says I haven't got a permit and I gotta leave or he'll call the cops."

"Bastard." Cassidy appropriately added.

"Yeah he was a huge jerk," said Elle. "so I told him to go take his confrontational attitude and shove it up his hairless capitalist nose."

"Them's big words for a little squirt." said Cassidy, with a playful smirk she added, "Do you really know what they mean?"

"You don't HAVE to know what words mean s'long as you use 'em with enough gumption." Elle gave a smarmy gaptoothed grin.

"Can't argue with that." Cassidy shrugged. "Continue."

"So this guy owns this big whassitcalled uhhhh one of those places with all the lights and sounds that rich people go to all the time, it looks like a funfair but for grown ups." at Cassidy's blank look she added, "There's a ton of 'em in Vegas."

Cassidy snapped her fingers. "Oh a casino?"

"That's it!!" Elle exclaimed. "He was a casino guy! And he was mad because I was performin' outside his casino, probably because all the rich people were giving ME money instead of him!"

"What were you performing?" Cassidy asked.

"Hey one story at a time." Elle pointed at Cassidy's nose. "I'm saving that one for tomorrow's dinner. So the Casino Guy calls the cops and they show up and ask all that stuff about 'paaaaarents' and 'where I liiiive'." Elle's voice was dripping with imitated condescension. "So I slipped through their legs, tripped one of them over and went and hid in Casino Guy's fancy casino garden."

"Okay but how did you get from casino garden to Casino Guy's house?" Cassidy asked, sliding the fresh box of unfresh chicken over to her small guest. "Casino Guys don't usually live in their casinos do they?" Not that Cassidy had any idea what rich people got up to.

"I saw him get in his big fancy car." Elle swept up the chicken and nibbled on the crispy batter. "So I jumped in the back when he wasn't looking. Waited 'til he stopped and I heard him get out, then I snuck into his house."

"Didn't he have some crazy security or anything?" Cassidy asked, excited as hell to hear where Elle was going to take this.

"Yeah but he parked right in his car house." Elle licked some greasy batter crumbs off her fingers. "It was attached to the rest of his house."

"Car house?" Cassidy thought for a moment. "Do you mean garage?"

"Is a garage a car house?" Elle asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay, then he parked in his garage house." Elle smiled, she loved learning new words. "None of his inside doors were locked so I could go wherever I wanted. Except near his front door, he had some pretty hefty security near his front door. It was a Dalv Co. LaserGrid Security Unit and those things get LOUD when they go off."

Cassidy idly wondered how it was this child could identify an advanced security system in detail but not know what a garage was. There was probably another story here, hopefully one she'd come to know.

"Anyway, so I cased the house while he was asleep and found out he had one of those whole house speaker systems so when he plays music it plays everywhere." Elle continued. "He had some boring bedtime playlist I think because he played it EVERY night, and it would play the same boring garbage ALL NIGHT."

"Please tell me you messed with his boring bedtime playlist." Cassidy's eyes sparkled with hope.

"I messed with his boring bedtime playlist!" exclaimed Elle as she threw her hands up and cackled to the sky. "I put a whole bunch of really noisy stuff on it, but I didn't put them all in the one spot, I sort of spaced them out like, a few hours apart. So he kept waking up through the night swearing at Smashmouth." Elle grinned.

"Something tells me," Cassidy began, steepling her fingers in thought, "that Smashmouth was just the beginning of this man's troubles."

Elle gave Cassidy a shit eating grin. "Don't you mean some BOD-"

"DON'T."

"-Y ONCE TOLD ME-"

"I swear to god."

"THE WORLD WAS GONNA-"

Cassidy snatched the still half full box of chicken. "You want this back, the Smashmouth must end."

Elle pouted. "Fiiiiine."

The chicken was cautiously returned.

"So, what else was in store for our friend Casino Guy?" Cassidy keenly asked.

"Other than putting garlic in his mouthwash, eating everything in his kitchen and sticking gum under all of his doorhandles?" Elle pulled a string of sinew from her chicken strip before shoving the whole thing in her mouth. "I hrew a jick om ish fache."

"You drew a what on his what??" Cassidy gasped.

The vendor got a lovely view of Elle's half chewed meal as she struggled to finish it off with an alarming lack of even the mere concept of table manners.

"I drew a DICK ON HIS FACE." Elle threw her head back and cackled like only a young teen could at anything involving genitals.

"In permanent marker I hope?" Cassidy said through a smile.

Elle couldn't respond, she was too busy snorting.

"Was that really the worst you did?" Cassidy asked through tight lips, Elle's laughter was infectious and she was having a damn hard time keeping her cool.

"Noooo." Elle's giggles finally started to taper off enough for breathing to once again become a Thing. "I hecked him up soooo hard, he'll be in therapy for YEARS." she collected herself and straightened up, looking slightly less mirthful. "I heard him talking on the phone a lot, one time he was talking to a lady and she kept saying something about 'child support'. I think it had something to do with his kid?" Elle shrugged.

"Yeah, if parents split up and only one of them is looking after their kid, the other has to give them payments to help with like, groceries and clothes for the kid and stuff like that." Cassidy tucked an escaped curl behind her ear. "That's how it was for my parents anyway."

"Oh." Elle thought for a moment. "Okay yeah, that makes sense. Casino Guy kept telling the lady on the phone that he wouldn't give them any money, but he said it real nasty like." she furrowed her thick, dark eyebrows and settled her face in a grumpy snarl. "'I don't give hand outs to whores, if you couldn't afford a kid you should've been on the pill.' Then the lady said something about how he lied about using 'protection' whatever that means, and that if he didn't pay up she'd take him to court."

Cassidy wasn't laughing anymore. "Ouch, that's... really rough. What an asshole."

"Yeah, I felt bad for the lady, she seemed really upset. And the poor kid." Elle picked at her food, looking down at her shoes. "That's when I got serious."

That mischievous gleam returned to Elle's bright blue eyes and Cassidy was 100% ready to find out what Elle's personal brand of justice entailed. She hoped there would be Many Sharp Things involved.

"So what I did was, I started moving things around. Every time he put something down and leave the room, I'd take it and put it somewhere really weird. Like I put his toothbrush in the fridge and the tv remote in the shower. It was driving him CRAZY, he couldn't figure out what was going on and I was REALLY good at hiding so he had NO idea that there was someone in his house.

"But that was just the START." Elle's grin could have blinded the Cheshire Cat. "I figured out how to tap into his house speakers with his phone that I definitely stole and eventually left in his mail box."

"Oh my god." Cassidy whispered. "This story is so absurdly juicy, what did you do next??"

"I whispered to 'im. Really obscure freaky stuff, like 'I can see you', and 'We're hungryyy'. Also sometimes I'd tell him where I left stuff and I'd hear him flip out when he found it there. He called the cops like five times but they never found me." Elle gave a sly wink. "I'm reeeaaally good at hiding."

"Holy shit he must have been terrified." Cassidy folded her arms and frowned. "You know I'd almost feel bad for him, if he wasn't such a douche canoe."

"Oh that isn't even the end of it!" Elle threw her hands in the air. "I started carving junk into the walls! I pulled quotes from texts in his phone, usually stuff he said to girls or stuff they said to him. He was really nasty to girls. My favourite was when I carved 'SLUT' into his ceiling while he was asleep, he screamed so loud when he woke up!!" Elle's evil cackle was considerably more sinister this time around.

"How the heck did you get onto his ceiling?" Cassidy was starting to wonder just how much of this story was true, but something about Elle was totally enthralling to her. She found she was having a hard time doubting anything the young girl said, and honestly, it was starting to make her feel somewhat... uneasy.

Elle looked thoughtful for barely a moment before answering the question.

"He had huge curtains that went all the way up to the ceiling, and a chandelier that could probably hold like, five of me! Anyway, after that he had a priest come by and bless the place. Smelled like white sage for days." Elle's face twisted in discomfort. "Made my nose itch like crazy."

"How long did you say you stayed there again?" Cassidy asked.

"Like, a week? My last thing was painting 'REPENT' on the wall in fake blood. There's this great recipe with syrup, food colouring and cocoa powder that makes it look super real and-"

"You have the most bizarre skill sets of any human being I have ever met." whispered Cassidy, her chin propped up on her knuckles and her eyes wide with intrigue.

Elle didn't really know what she meant by that, but figured it was probably a compliment? She felt weirdly flustered all of a sudden.

"Yeah so, um, I guess he figured, um." Elle took a moment to get her shit together, damn it what was it about girls with dark hair always making her face heat up... was she allergic or something?

"Are you okay?" Cassidy asked, mildly concerned at the young girl's sudden bashfulness.

"NOTHING I'M FINE IT'S FINE." Elle calmly screeched. "So this guy right?? He, um, he sees this stuff on his wall and he straight up FREAKS OUT. First thing he does is call his mom and start crying and apologising to her about something. Then he goes through a whole BUNCH of girls on his phone and does the same thing! And when he's done he crawls onto the floor and starts talking to god! Hahaha!!"

Elle shook the last of the batter crumbs from the box into her mouth and licked her lips.

"I figured he'd had enough so I took all his money out of his wallet, snatched up some fancy smelling spray stuff that I liked from his bathroom and left the house. Next time I did a show outside his casino he left ten bucks in my hat!" Elle grinned. "Cheapskate could afford way more than that but progress is progress."

"Man, you're like, some crazy avenging angel." Cassidy thought for a moment. "Or, maybe a demon."

Elle gave Cassidy a sideways look as she scrunched up her empty chicken box.

"I prefer to think of myself as more of a... Phantom." With that Elle leapt off the counter and hit the ground running, waving a hand over her shoulder and yelling back at her new friend. "SEE YOU TOMORROW!! I GOT TONS MORE STORIES TO TELL!!"

"WAIT!" Cassidy yelled. "AT LEAST TELL ME WHAT KIND OF SHOW YOU WERE DOING!"

Elle turned around, jogging slowly backwards she cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed across the street.

"MAGIC!!"

Cassidy shook her head and snickered to herself.

Of. Fucking. Course.


	2. Super Businessman’y Guy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elle’s back with another story, and Cassidy finds out more than she expected to about her new little friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some hefty depressing shit happens at a point in this chapter, trigger warnings for anyone who can’t deal with uhh ‘suicide adjacent’ language. It only makes up a very small portion though

“So what kind of magic do you do?” Cassidy asked.

As promised, Elle had returned the next evening, and was enthusiastically digging into a box of spicy wings.

“Whatever I feel like.” Elle replied, “I make things disappear, move stuff without touching it.” she licked some sauce from her thumb. “I can levitate too!”

“Prove it.” Cassidy grinned in challenge.

“You wanna see it you’ll have to come to one of my shows.” Elle gave a cheeky wink. “I can show you one trick though.”

Elle put down her box of wings, wiped her grubby hands on her equally grubby jacket, and tugged her beanie so far over her head that only her sauce speckled chin was visible. Barely a second passed before the beanie was ripped off with a loud “TA-DAAAH!!” and her dark black bird’s nest was revealed to now be a pure white still-tangled mess of etherial shining hair.

“What the fuck?!” Cassidy leaned forward and took a strand of the hair cautiously between her fingers. “How the SHIT-“

“You swear a lot.”

“You just changed your hair colour right in front of my face!”

Cassidy sat back, eyebrows raised and mouth still slightly parted in amazement. That was a hell of a trick. Was it a wig? Did Elle keep some kind of white powder in her beanie? How in the WORLD-

“Pretty good huh?” Elle grinned, running her hands back over her hair. Wherever her hands passed, the hair once again returned to black.

“Oooh I get it.” Cassidy grinned a smug grin. “You’re using that mood ring type hair dye that changes colour with shifts in temperature, right? I saw that stuff on facebook, even your hands are warm enough to make it change colour.”

Elle placed a finger to her lips and winked.

“Magic people don’t tell their tricks.”

“Okay Houdini, I won’t tell.” Cassidy picked the discarded beanie out of a puddle of hot sauce and gave it a quick introduction to an antiseptic wipe. “Do you get harassed by cops often for not having a permit?”

“ALL the TIME!” Elle threw her head back and let loose the most overdramatic guttoral sigh. “I can have such a great crowd EATING out of the middle of my hand, and the cops ALWAYS show up at the WORST moment.”

“I mean try thinking from their perspective though.” said Cassidy. “They see this scruffy kid who barely fits into her clothes looking like she hasn’t showered in five years, obviously they’re worried that you’re not being looked after.”

Elle mulled that over for a moment.

“They’re still annoying. I didn’t ASK for their help.”

“Have you ever wanted to help someone even though they didn’t ask?”

Elle went quiet, squinting in thought.

“Actually, I have a story kind’ve about that.” She pulled her beanie back onto her head, the spot Cassidy cleaned was now a bright red patch that stood out amongst the dirt and grime on the rest of it.

“I am all ears.” said Cassidy.

“Okay, there was this one time in this big city somewhere where I did magic on this one street every day, it was my favourite place to perform ‘cause the cops hardly bothered me, there were so many other people doing shows and playing music.

“But this one time when I was doing a show there was this big guy in a suit, he had a briefcase and everything like a super businessman’y guy, and he started watching the show, then he looked like he was gonna walk away but kept looking over his shoulder and coming back to watch. He glanced around a lot too like he was looking for someone so I figured he was like, one of those concerned adult types tryin’ to find a cop, I get a few of those sometimes. Nosy punks.”

“Hey,” Cassidy interrupted, “you aren’t allowed to start calling people ‘punks’ until you’re at LEAST over the age of 40. It’s the law.”

Elle looked genuinely surprised.

“It is?!”

“No.” said Cassidy. “That was a joke.”

“Oh, jeebus don’t scare me like that, cops already pick on me enough!” Elle put her hand to her heart in an exaggerated motion. “Anyway, what was I saying?”

“Nosy super businessman’y guy.”

“Right! So I pack up my routine figuring I’m gonna get in trouble soon anyway, and super businessman’y guy comes over and says hi, he even kneels down and talks to me face to face like I’m some dumb baby.” Elle puffed up in annoyance. “If I wanna look down on someone I don’t need THEIR help to do it.”

“Somehow I don’t doubt it.” Cassidy couldn’t help but giggle, this girl had more gusto than anyone she’d ever met. Even when sitting on her counter Elle was a head shorter than her, and sometimes the pipsqueak still managed to make Cassidy feel like the smaller of the two. Girl had a huge personality to make up for her height.

“So super business guy tries askin’ all that boring stuff about my parents,” Elle continued, “and I tell him to shit off and bother some other homeless kid. Weird thing happened then.” Elle paused.

Cassidy listened intently.

“He actually backed off!” Elle finished. “He said he wouldn’t bother me any more if I didn’t want him to, but he just wanted to know if I had somewhere safe to stay tonight because he was doing a late shift at work tonight and I could tag along and get to spend some time indoors where it’s warm. Said he could tell his boss I was his little cousin or something.”

“That was... suspiciously nice of him.” said Cassidy. “He wasn’t, you know, some creep or anything was he?”

“At first I kinda thought he was,” said Elle, “but like, he just seemed so nice? Like he made sure I didn’t feel like he was pushing me, and he offered to take me somewhere there’d be other people instead of his home so I’d feel safer. He just wanted me to feel safe I guess.” Elle spotted her half forgotten box of wings and pulled the now cold meat back into her lap. “I’ve met a lot of creepy guys on the street but he definitely wasn’t one of ‘em.”

“Thank god for that.” Cassidy breathed. “It can really be seriously dangerous for a kid out there sometimes. There are some mondo creepazoids in the world who wouldn’t think twice about hurting a poor homeless kid.”

“I know.” Elle’s heavy brows lowered, voice suddenly going cold. “But the real fucked up creeps aren’t always the ones out on the streets.”

Cassidy wondered, not for the first time, how it was that Elle came to be homeless, and suddenly realised that she may not want to know the answer.

Elle shook off her dark mood almost as quickly as it appeared.

“So the business guy actually worked at some newspaper place,” Elle continued as though she hadn’t been interrupted at all. “He said he was doing second drafts of some news stories and asked me to help come up with titles, they like to have puns in ‘em, he said, or some clever word-playing. I made one that was ‘Huge Fire Lights Up Apartment Block!” Elle grinned a little sadly. “He said he’d use it but I saw the paper the next day and they changed it to something better. I knew it sucked, Danny was always the one with the good puns, I’m never real good with clever words.”

“Was Danny business guy’s name?” Cassidy asked.

Elle looked startled for a moment.

“No.” she said, Cassidy waited for further explanation, but it didn’t come.

“Sooo who’s Danny then?” she asked.

Elle shoved some cold wings into her mouth, obviously buying time. It was clear that, for whatever reason, she didn’t want to talk about whoever ‘Danny’ was. Cassidy didn’t push, she waited patiently until Elle finished her food.

“He’s,” said Elle, after licking the last of her sticky, saucy fingers clean and popping some gum into her mouth, she could procrastinate no longer. “My... twin brother?”

She said it like she wasn’t entirely sure that was the right answer.

“We didn’t grow up together.” she added quickly, seeing the confused twist of Cassidy’s lip. “So it’s like, kinda weeirrrd. We sorta just, call each other ‘cousins’, kinda like a joke?” she shrugged, smiling a little bit. “He thinks it’s funny.”

“Ooooh,” Cassidy understood a little better now. “Yeah I get that, I have a sister I’ve never met, and calling her my sister just doesn’t feel right sometimes.”

“Exactly!” Elle’s smile returned, happy to find a kindred spirit.

“So what WAS business guy’s name then?” Cassidy asked.

“Mmmm, can’t remember, started with a C.” Elle thought about it, noisily chewing her gum as she did, then shrugged. “I dunno, I’ll tell ya if I remember it, but anyway. His office was warm and he let me borrow his coat which was nice, there were even mints in the pocket that he let me have! I mean I would’ve taken them anyway but it was nice to have permission to go through someone’s pockets for once.”

Cassidy idly patted a hand over her phone and wallet, no particular reason, just making sure they were still there. They were, but her gum was gone. Huh.

Elle’s eyes smiled behind the large pink bubble she was blowing and it immediately popped across her nose and chin.

“Business guy’s jacket was so big and warm that I fell asleep all wrapped up in it like a cuckoo.” said Elle as she peeled gum off her face.

“Cuckoo? Did you mean cocoon?”

“Is that the thing that the bugs sleep in?” Elle asked, shoving the gum back in her mouth.

“Well, caterpillars sleep in it, so yes?”

“Okay I was wrapped up in one of those then.” Elle corrected herself. “So what’s a cuckoo then? I know that’s a word too.”

“A cuckoo is a bird.” Cassidy answered, “People make clocks with little fake ones in them that make a ‘cuck~oooo!’ sound every hour.”

Elle giggled. “Can you do that again?”

Cassidy, once again, cuckoo’d. Elle giggled some more.

“If I knew you were this easy to impress I wouldn’t have bothered with the wings.” Cassidy mumbled playfully as she took the empty food box back.

“Hey, laughs don’t fill my belly!” Elle argued. “Now if you wanna hear the rest of the story, then stop interrupting!”

“Fine, fine.” Cassidy rolled her eyes.

Elle sniffed and made a show of primly straightening up her jacket and hat before she continued.

“I woke up under business guy’s desk still all wrapped up, but he wasn’t there. A lady came over instead and said she was his friend and he said to tell me he had to run off to do some work stuff real quick, but she’d keep me company ‘til he got back. Then she started talking about how he was a big softie and if I gave him some big eyes and a quivering lip that he’d probably do anything I wanted. He’s a sucker for kids in need, she said. Always wants to help everyone like some big boyscout.”

“Did you try it out?”

“Heck yeah I did! Worked like magic! As soon as he got back I said I was reeeaaally hungry and I grabbed my belly and looked at him all sad and he ran right off and got me a huge burger and a bag of snacks. The lady gave me a high five when he wasn’t looking.” Elle cackled.

“You don’t feel bad about that? Manipulating a guy who just wanted to help?” Cassidy knew that Elle had a skewed sense of morals, she had to pick pockets just to eat after all, but Elle’s mirthful joy over swindling such a kind soul was a bit rough to hear.

Again, she felt the gap in her pocket where her gum once sat as Elle popped another strawberry scented bubble right in front of her.

“It... it wasn’t like I was trying to be mean or anything,” Elle looked down at her fingers, suddenly very intent on cleaning the sauce out from under them with a napkin. “He had a job and a place to live, it’s not like he couldn’t afford to buy me some food, you know?” she still wouldn’t look Cassidy in the eye. “And I think he knew what I was doing, it was kinda like a game... sort of.”

“To try and see what you can get away with?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

Elle suddenly felt very shameful, for much the same reason that she didn’t like thinking about her twin brother. Danny was the nicest person she knew, he only ever wanted to do good things for people, including her.

Especially her.

And here she was manipulating kind strangers and stealing gum out of nice ladies pockets. He’d be so proud.

“I did try to make it up to him.” Elle whined, sounding for the first time as though she was not 100% in control of the conversation.

Cassidy got the impression that this didn’t happen very often. Elle seemed extremely uncomfortable with the fact that Cassidy had made her feel something she didn’t want to feel. She was on the defensive.

“I offered to talk to his dad for ‘im! I can tell when people know someone who died, and he really really REALLY missed his dad.”

That caught Cassidy’s attention. “For real? How do you do that?”

Elle shrugged, “I dunno, I just look at people and,” she tilted her head and squinted in thought for a second. “it’s like they have a shadow, but not a real shadow you can see just like, an imprint. Actually it’s not even so much a shadow as it is like a piece of light is missing. Like when someone dies they take a piece of the people who love them with them.”

Cassidy had met psychics before, she even lived next door to a self professed medium who was constantly offering her white sage and healing crystals to ‘cleanse her apartment of negative energies’. The man was nice, made excellent tea and the sage covered up the smell of her unwashed laundry, but that was all the thought she’d really put into the matter.

If there were real psychics in the world, Elle was just weird enough that Cassidy wouldn’t be surprised to find out she was one.

“I knew it was his dad who died becomes sometimes the holes just like, kinda feel certain-people shaped.” Elle sort of explained. “I mean it can be hard to tell sometimes because it isn’t based so much on genetics and biology as it feelings and heart. I could feel a dad-shaped hole in someone and find out it was their uncle or a friend or like, a really nice teacher they had.”

“I guess blood isn’t thicker than water after all huh.” Cassidy interjected.

“‘The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb’. Your family don’t make you, you make your family.” said Elle, so matter of factly that Cassidy was quite taken aback.

“Is that really the whole saying? How do you even know that?” Cassidy was surprised, although by this point she felt she really shouldn’t be.

“My friend Sam would always say it that way, but not the second part... Danny always says the second part.” Elle smiled faintly. “But yeah, sometimes I can’t always be sure I’m right about people’s dead family, especially siblings, things get real murky with siblings, but business guy had a real strong dad-shaped hole in his aura. So I said that I could talk to him, give or send a message and all that.”

“Did he believe you?”

“I’m not sure.” Elle pondered, “He seemed pretty surprised that I knew his dad died, but he might have thought it was a kind of magic trick because he said he wasn’t interested.”

“Maybe he just didn’t wanna dig up old wounds.” Cassidy suggested, she knew the feeling.

“Maybe, his dad took a lot out of him when he died, he must’ve been super important to ‘im, and I really didn’t wanna just... leave it at that, ya know? People with big holes always miss them the most. So I stole a family photo off his desk with a guy in it that was probably his dad? Looked nothin’ like him but there weren’t any other pictures so it was a safe bet, and I used it to anchor his spirit and have a chat.”

Cassidy listened with intense fascination, making a real attempt not to interrupt.

“So I get talking with his dad and, everyone’s spirit plane is something different, and this guy had a big old barn. I think he was a farmer because the photo had a big tractor in it that they were all leaning on, and this guy LOOKED like a farmer too in all flannel and muddy boots, and he says to me-“

Elle cut herself off, frowning.

“Well I mean, it was kind of a personal conversation, but the gist was that he was proud of his kid and that he was doing what he was ‘sent to this earth to do’ whatever that meant. It must have meant something really important because when I came back I said it to the guy and he just like, almost started crying. He gave me a big hug, and told me I had a real gift and if I ever needed to talk to someone about it, he could find someone to help me. Then he gave me-“

Elle perked up suddenly, and pulled a worn, grubby wallet out of her pocket, carefully removing a business card, in perfect condition other than some weathering on the edges.

“I totally forgot! He had his name on his business card!” she passed it over to Cassidy who read-

Clark Kent - Daily Planet Journalist

-followed by a business address, office number, fax and phone number, his work email and the web address for the Daily Planet’s online newspaper.

Elle swept it up again quickly and gently popped it away, Cassidy noticed other pieces of paper tucked into the mangy old wallet.

“Did you ever call him again?” Cassidy asked.

Elle slipped her wallet back into the pocket of her faded blue hoodie.

“No, didn’t really need to. Maybe if I ever go back to that city I’ll go see him though, he was nice.” She smiled, a big shiny smile that showed off the chip in her front tooth. “He reminded me of Danny a lot.”

“Why don’t-“ A breeze swept through and turned the air cold, cutting Cassidy off, it was edging on winter now and the first few flakes of snow seemed to be dropping early. She and Elle tugged their jackets tighter.

“Why don’t you stay with your brother instead of risking your life out on the side of the road every night? He sounds like a decent guy, and every time you bring him up you start smiling.”

“I do not!” Elle insisted. “And he’s lame, he likes really gross milkshakes and makes bad jokes and he’s a goody two shoes who cares about everyone too much for his own good!”

Elle thumped one leg heavily over the side of the metal counter, kicking the air fitfully as she crossed her arms over herself, partially in annoyance but mostly to keep warm.

Cassidy had a sneaking suspicion that the issue at hand involved quite a lot more than Danny’s unsavoury milkshake preferences... or his bad jokes.

“Stop me if I’m reading this wrong,” Cassidy started, raising a hand. “but I’m getting a vibe that the real issue isn’t that he cares too much about EVERYONE, but more that he cares too much about YOU. Because you really seem to take issue with people who worry about you.”

Elle hunched over silently as she pulled the gum from her mouth and squished it between her fingers, pretty much ignoring Cassidy entirely.

“So you don’t want to stay with him because he’s either too smothering, or,” Cassidy held a breath before continuing slowly. “Or you feel like you’d be a burden to him.”

Elle glared and if Cassidy had been paying attention to the light snowfall outside her truck, she’d notice that it had slowed to near stillness, but instead she had locked eyes with Elle and was not letting go.

Elle took a ragged breath, scowling hard, her eyes seeming so bright all of a sudden.

“I AM a burden! Of course I’m a burden! He shouldn’t be worrying about me,” Elle’s voice started to raise in pitch. “He doesn’t have time to worry about me. He’s always busy with so much stuff but he acts like I’m soooo much more important than everything else but I’m not! I’m not important! I’m not even supposed to BE here! I don’t even MATTER. He’s better off with me g-gone so he isn’t wasting his time on m-my useless s-SICK FREAKY ASS.”

Cassidy swam through the tears in Elle’s vision until they drained away down her face, splashing on the cold counter beneath her. She furiously wiped her eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that!” Elle screamed. “I don’t need your pity! I’m FINE! I can take care of myself! People should just stop wasting their time always worrying about me! I’m not even worth it! I’m probably gonna just die soon anyway. I wasn’t even supposed to last this long, and when I’m gone nobody will have to deal with me any more and they’ll be glad because all I am is a big useless lump of flesh who just gets in the way-“

Cassidy grabbed at Elle, at first the girl thought the woman was going in for a hug but instead Cassidy ripped the old wallet from her hoodie pocket.

Stunned, Elle blinked at Cassidy as she opened it and shoved all the little papers under Elle’s nose.

“If you don’t deserve help then why did you keep these?” Cassidy asked, voice quiet. “I know what these are, they’re all phone numbers aren’t they? Phone numbers, business cards, addresses, websites, people and places that have offered to help you. People and places that want you to come back when you NEED help.”

Elle made a quick grab for the wallet but Cassidy held it out of reach.

“And you know that you deserve them,” Cassidy said firmly. “You know somewhere deep down that you need help, that you AREN’T fine, and that you deserve the help being given to you. Because if you didn’t, those numbers wouldn’t still be there, they wouldn’t be so clean and tidy and well taken care of. You didn’t throw these in the trash because you knew that if you called they WOULD help you, they would do everything they can to help you, because you need help. You DESERVE help.”

Elle sniffed, but kept silent as tears drenched her cheeks, nose and quivering lips, and her eyes red and puffy.

Cassidy gently handed back the wallet, and it left in Elle’s tiny hands as the girl ran through the cold wind away from Cassidy and her truck, the snow parting around her as she fled.

Cassidy hoped she’d come back.


	3. A Strange Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The man’s piercing, bright blue eyes cut into her from under dark, professionally plucked eyebrows, and Cassidy shivered from more than just cold.

Cassidy’s hands lingered in the hot water in the sink before she pulled the soapy cloth out and wiped down the surface of the truck’s front counter.

Winter had hit with full force and business had slowed considerably as the amount of foot traffic halved with the freezing weather. Cassidy kept the truck and her business running during the cold snaps by adding hot coffee to her menu list. 

It wasn’t good coffee, but people weren’t as picky when their hands were nearly turned to ice, just holding a warm cup helped people through the day, regardless of whether they drank it.

The interior of Cassidy’s truck was warm, but the wind had turned during the past hour and had been blasting through her window with increasing strength. Cassidy never particularly liked closing up so early, but the windburn on her freezing face and ice cold hands decided otherwise.

She dunked her stiff, raw fingers back in the warm water, the heat tingled and burned but it was a welcome feeling compared to the numbing cold of the wind and snow blowing through the window.

Cassidy was so SO close to finally closing the shutters and saying goodbye to the awful, searingly cold weather, when a gloved hand grabbed the bottom of the shutter at just the last moment.

Cassidy sighed, her thoughts of a warm bath and a good book slipping further away.

The glove looked to be made of some kind of soft, velvety material, with finely stitched seams and delicate embroidery on the cuff. The single glove alone was probably worth more than her entire truck, and that was nothing compared to the rest of the glove’s owner.

As Cassidy and the stranger’s glove both pushed the shutter back up, she blinked through the sudden, intense winds to find an older gentleman standing at her window.

His suit was so finely tailored it looked as though he’d been sewn into it, the delicate scarf wound around his neck appeared to provide more warmth than Cassidy would have guessed, and it partially covered a tidy, well groomed silver goatee.

The man’s piercing, bright blue eyes cut into her from under dark, professionally plucked eyebrows, and Cassidy shivered from more than just cold.

It didn’t take much of a leap of logic for Cassidy to pick up that this guy was loaded. He oozed extravagant wealth from every pore, it was embedded in the way he held himself, with a strong confidant stance and a look of pompous superiority.

What in the world did this man want from Cassidy? Surely he had a legion of staff to get him coffee and a hot meal, no one in their right mind would be willingly standing out here in the cold when they could be comfortably seated in a warm mansion or a top floor company office somewhere.

Cassidy got her answer soon enough in the form of a picture, quickly flipped out of a breast pocket with quick, dextrous fingers. The man smiled, a suave, charming smile, Cassidy wasn’t charmed.

“I’m terribly sorry to trouble you my dear, but I’m afraid I need a moment of your time.” Said the man.

Cassidy shivered again, the wind biting right through her heavy coat.

“I’m in the middle of closing, if you want something you can come back tomorrow morning.” Before her hand could even touch the shutter, the photograph was slipped under her nose.

“I’m looking for this girl. I’d be extremely grateful if you could provide me with any information of her whereabouts.”

Cassidy fumbled the picture into her numb fingertips.

The picture was a candid shot, slightly pixelated as though it had been zoomed in quite a bit. The girl in the photo wasn’t looking at the camera, but checking over her shoulder. Cassidy couldn’t get a very good read on the blurry quality of her expression, but she was sure the girl looked upset, perhaps even frightened.

She knew this girl.

“Never seen her.” said Cassidy, heart thudding in her ears. “She your kid?”

The man’s charming smile hardened slightly, Cassidy’s spine tingled.

“I understand that having such a steady...” the man’s eyes flicked over her truck, “business... can make it quite hard to remember each and every face that passes you by. However, I would greatly appreciate it if you could perhaps try to remember just a little harder?”

He spoke with a slimy condescension, and the threat in his voice was clear. He wasn’t leaving until he got what he wanted.

Cassidy’s eyes darted over the empty, ice slicked streets, she suddenly felt very, very alone. Her lip trembled slightly, but she bit down on it hard, he was trying to scare her, and she was not going to sit and take it.

“I told you, I haven’t seen her.” Cassidy leaned forward, voice growing colder than the wind. “And I would greatly appreciate it if you’d take this fucking intimidation bullshit and shove it up your ass. I don’t know who the fuck you are or what you want with this girl, but I’ve got nothing for you, and trying to scare me with subtle threats isn’t going to change that.”

The man’s eyes widened slightly.

“That was extremely uncalled for my dear. I was simply-“

“Shove it, I’ve dealt with enough manipulating assholes to see through this kind of shit. I’m not buying your act. I don’t know the girl, and honestly even if I did I probably wouldn’t tell you shit. Fuck. Off.”

Cassidy slammed the shutter down in the man’s furious face before he could let out another word.

She kept the photo.

**Author's Note:**

> Elle definitely has more stories to tell, updates will be erratic tho because I'm a v busy student with a v busy life, BUT I WILL TRY MY BEST. STAY TUNED FOR ELLE'S NEXT MEAL... EVENTUALLY.


End file.
